This
Page
Catalogue
General
Description
of Types of
Contents
DEVON
KARST RESEARCH SOCIETY CENTRAL ARCHIVE
|
History
& Development :
The Society's Archive was
originally set up by the Group's Founders in 1976 in parallel with, but
separately from, the Library Collections, as a secure repository for karst
information donated to the Society and which may be of Commercial, Military
or other special Confidential value, as determined by the donor. The donor
may often stipulate that such material is given to the Society on the strict
understanding that access to the documents can only be given to the Society's
Members for academic purposes and that under no circumstances will it be
copied, published or made publicly available.
This situation is current
and by acknowledging the existence of such a Facility, the Society continues
to receive such restricted-access material, of karst or cave relevance,
which may otherwise be destroyed or stored in other archives and be totally
lost to the academic world.
The general evolution of
the Society's Archives over the intervening years has meant that they have
also become a repository for the Society's unpublished records relating
to its own exploits.
The Photographic, Film,
Sound and Document Archives date from the inception of the Archive
Facility but it was not until 1983 that the now extensive Video Archive
came into being.
In 1999, the Digital
Archives were begun.
The current scheme of organizing
the Document Archive into karst area-specific files, for ease of
access to specific information, has meant that individual Archive Document
Files may contain discrete reports etc. which have a "restricted access"
imposed upon them by the donor source. The result is that this system has
rendered much of the Archive Document Files unavailable for perusal by
non-members in order to maintain a strictly imposed "Rule of Confidentiality"
on the secure Archive.
Archive
Catalogue :
The entire Archive Collections
are currently being catalogued. It will never be available to non-members.
This Catalogue is necessarily very detailed in order to provide a comprehensive
coverage of all the individual contents of each Archive File, whether of
Document, Film, Video, Sound or Digital format.
To extend the scope of accessibility
to the Catalogue for non-Members and for academic purposes only, it may
be proposed in the future to segregate the Archive Catalogue into sub-sections
and make the un-restricted access material on the contents
list available for perusal in hard copy form only. Further than this it
is not possible to go without compromising the security of the Archive.
Members and other Authorized-access
users may access the incomplete Archive Catalogue document by clicking
on the Link below.
(Members and Authorized-access
users who do not have the current SAR Passwords, should contact the Hon.
Secretary by e-mail using the address on the Website Homepage).
Click on this Link to view
the Archive
Catalogue Lafd4.
(Active,
Authorized Access only, MS Word Document, updated 15 October 2006; 296
kB unzipped and 240 kB zipped)
General
Description of Types of Contents :
-
Un-published DKRS material
: Examples are Internal Reports, Memoranda, Aide-Memoires, Notices,
Minutes & Records of Official Meetings, Financial Records, pre-publication
Journal proofs, correspondence files, information files, sound, film, video
and digital files, Project Report Files;
-
Un-published PhD Theses or
other similar academic material of karst relevance;
-
Un-published or published
other documentation as specified : (no examples given);
-
Published or unpublished
material with "Restricted" circulation or access as requested by the donor
/ author / publisher : Examples are Geo-technical Reports / Evaluations
/ Maps / Plans / Charts etc. of karst or cave sites in, on or beneath commercial
or domestic premises or military installations or sites and having "In
Confidence", "Commercial - In Confidence" or a UK or Foreign
Military "Restricted Access" Status.
-
Foreign
Policy Archive was set up in 2004 in response to the developing situation
with Project Work in the Dinaric Karst of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It contains
:-
-
Special
FP Archive, for all Science Project Information
in Bosnia & Herzegovina and Crna Gora - "BLUE FILES" (hard-copy
and digital formats) - containing reports on projects specific to
the science programme in those countries. Many of the reports have now
been published for limited academic circulation;
-
Special
Combined FP Archive, for all material
relating to the Karst Territories of the former Austro-Hungarian Monarchy
in R. Bosnia and Herzegovina, R. Crna Gora (Montenegro) and Croatian Dalmatia,
which forms a specialised information research resource supporting the
Society's Science Projects in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Crna Gora. In
itself, this contains a large specialist Map collection and much other
data relating to the Dinaric Karst Territories. Some of this material is
historic, whilst other material is contemporary.
With the forthcoming change
in status of the Society to that of a Registered Charity, it is proposed
to transfer the Archive Resource into the ownership of the new organization,
The Devon Karst Research Society Ltd., provided that the present material-acquisition
and access arrangements can continue indefinitely without any change. If
this is not possible, the ownership of this Asset will be vested with a
"Holding Organization", which will effectively be a "residual" of the current
Society's organization. |